With roles like Haruhi Suzumiya (Haruhi Suzumiya series), Konata Izumi (Lucky Star), Migi (Parasyte), and of course, Lucy Heartfilia (Fairy Tail), seiyuu Aya Hirano is certainly one of the most popular seiyuu out there. And like other mega-popular seiyuu, she also has her own music albums and does other types of work. And with more work comes more income, which means she’s really living comfortably by now. However, when she was still starting out, this wasn’t the case, as she revealed in an interview back in 2014.

In 2014, she appeared in Kansai TV’s Kaiketsu Emi Channel variety show, which has now surfaced. Because the channel is regional, many around Japan didn’t really catch the show’s airing. And now that it has surfaced, the news of Ayachi’s frugal living before she was famous shocked many. In a statement in the show, she revealed that she was so poor she had to eat tissues in order to survive. She also admitted that she puts soy sauce in them too, probably to make it palatable.

What’s more is that she was still doing it while she started working on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This means that when she delivered that line about espers, time travelers, and aliens on episode 1, that meant that she probably ate tissues with soy sauce for breakfast. While seiyuu do get decent wages when they have good roles, seiyuu who are still starting out don’t. This was certainly the case for the then-newcomer, whose breakout role as Haruhi gave her the stardom she needed.

However, she did admit that she wasn’t eating the cheapest of tissues, but the ones with lotion. Well, even if she’s struggling, she still had to moisturise her skin to look good and help land roles. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to need to resort to eating paper in order to survive nowadays.

source: Sora News 24